So this is K. One of my very best friends and also my work-partner. But besides the work we do together she also wors as an Art Director and she works a lot. So sometimes when she feels really tired and stressed (that's quite often)she does some shopping. You know, some people eat chocolate, others get drunk, some shop. And also shopping whenever the sales are happening, just for the fun of it. Nothing wrong with that really from one point of view (which would be the capitalist view of our well-being society I'd guess. And we're all part of that, one way or another). But if you aready have a lot of things (how many of you reading this will actually need a pair of new shoes for real within say, the next two years?) or if you earn ok money but never really manage to save any of it it might be good to look at things from another pint of view.
K has a lot of really nice clothing and accessoary, she has very cute but still classy style and likes to get stuff from new designers or quality brands. (I wrote this because I've labelled my blog "fashion blog". Otherwise I coul've skipped this sentence :) But on our trip in Berlin, staying with our friend in a house where nobody really works (works in a matter of going somewhere to work and then get paid at the end of the month) but paint and do music and thus live on a quite tight budget K started talking about cutting down the shopping.
Inspite of the small budget our friend (who moved to Berlin from Helsinki last spring) still got by quite well. She didnt have a credit card but had a certain amount of cash to spend every month. She just didn't do any shopping - the only exeption being a pair of blue vintage suede boots for €10 in July (fashionblogger writing here again) - but otherwie lived quite like before. Now of course you can't compare Berlin to Helsinki in a matter of the costs for taking a cab or eating out (or at home either, not to mention the other costs for living) since Helsinki is so darn expensive, but I guess both K and I could get by on a lot smaller budget than now. It's hard to let go of a certain lifestyle one is used to, and I have no need for a drastic change, even though I could cook at home a bit more often than I do for example (half of the things I buy I'm forced to throw away since they go bad before I even try to make something out of them). And I could take the nightbus home with the common people every now and then after a night out on town instead of always grabing that costy cab. (please note my slight tone of irony here. I'm rather common too).
Then there is always the topic of what should you really do with all your money - save it for a bigger flat, travels, the future children, give everything extra away or whatever? I'm not going to go in on that (is anyone still reading at this point btw?) . I'll just stick to the more shallow stuff here.
Well anyway (you can continue reading here if you skipped some text above now), K made a decision not to do any shopping anymore. She didn't really say how long this project would last, I guess it will evolve into just buying less in the future, since I'm still quite sure she hasn't bought her last pairs of shoes yet :)
So, wish her luck!
Because this blog is mainly about pretty things and since it's nice with pics instead of just text I'll post a picture my magnificent mobilephone captured of some cute tings K got while it was still ok for her to consume - a lovely leather purse and leather cuff. Everything always looks like candy on her:
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...and a little update. K bought curtains and was a bit worried about that but they don't count since she needed them, they therefore had a purpouse and weren't just for herself but for her house and Mr too.
(If anyone wondres why this is labelled under 'fucked up things' it's just because this whole topic is quite fucked up really, even though it's quite general; there are even blogs about people changing their lifestyles towards non-consuming and so on. It's just fucked up since we make such a big thing about it, in some parts of the world they would have no clue what the hell I'm talking about.)
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